The silent.dta file contains information on Supreme Court decisions in which one or more justices concurred in the judgment or dissented without writing an opinion to explain why they disagreed with the majority position. This practice is referred to as "noting" or "silent" disagreement. The sample period is 1791 through O.T. 2014. The sample does not include in-chambers opinions, per curiam decisions in cases that were not orally argued, or shadow docket orders.  

Variables include:

-case: case name

-citation: U.S. Reports citation

-year: decision year (term not used due to changes in terms over time)

-notedConcurrence: 1 if the opinion includes a noted concurrence and 0 otherwise 

-notedDissent: 1 if the opinion includes a noted concurrence and 0 otherwise 

If you use these data, please cite: 

Fife, Madelyn, Greg Goelzhauser, Kaylee Hodgson, and Nicole Vouvalis. 2017. "Concurring and Dissenting without Opinion." Journal of Supreme Court History 42(2): 171-192.

See also: 

Goelzhauser, Greg. 2016. "Silent Concurrences." Constitutional Commentary 31(3): 351-380.

For more on a related phenomenon where justices suppress their dissenting positions entirely, see: 

Goelzhauser, Greg. 2015. "Silent Acquiescence on the Supreme Court." Justice System Journal 36(1): 3-19.

Goelzhauser, Greg. 2015. "Graveyard Dissents on the Burger Court." Journal of Supreme Court History 40(2): 188-202.